


Go Easy, Little Dove

by impossiblesongs



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Post Episode: s04e08-09 Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblesongs/pseuds/impossiblesongs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she jumped he was there to catch her. She had been right about that. It’s the moments in which she fell that he could never seem to get there in time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go Easy, Little Dove

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER:: Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
> AN: Title from a song by Brooke Waggoner.

When she jumped he was there to catch her. She had been right about that. It’s the moments in which she fell that he could never seem to get there in time.

 

She fell down like a star that gravity pulls at. Tugs and tugs until its grown heavy, too heavy for the sky to hold. Down she goes. She burns and burns and he was made to watch. All for him. Three words followed close at her every step.

 

_Always, my love. –_ She’d said.

 

He could feel the shift of the universe like the skin he wore yet River Song turned in orbit like no universe he’d come to know. She was something maddening. Something precious.  Something stolen.

 

She had first gotten beneath his skin uninvited. She continued to fester where he wished she hadn’t but it was too late. She swept in and around, all consuming. She ran swift and steady, a current that flooded and washed away the damage. She became the river that calmed out his every storm.

 

When Darillium was upon them time sent its inevitable invitation. And so he begrudgingly accepted. Showed up on her doorstep with a new haircut and a suit. The towers sang and he cried. They sang a song of mourning in her honor.

 

He’d been convinced the universe didn’t care but it turned out it very much did.  He’d heard it said again and again throughout his life but he’d never thought it would add up to this. The trade-in.

 

_‘A world without the Doctor would be a far darker one._ ’

 

So the saying goes. It accepted her sacrifice with open arms. Her life for his own. The universe long owed her a debt and it bloody well knew it too.

 

Sometimes, when it turns, he can feel the universe grieve almost as much as he does. If only it deserved that privilege.

 

He’ll never be able to shake off how quiet his own Tardis became the day River was downloaded into the Library. He’d linked her screwdriver with his psychic paper and when the notice came it confirmed that she was gone.

 

The Old Girl had dimmed on the inside. It was as if she’d tucked away inside of herself. Retreated and hid from his presence. Her light took on a shadow and her warmth caught with a chill. The wheeze of her in motion bounced off the walls in lonely echoes. Silence fell.

 

_Saved._

 

The word had been a lie. For one to be saved, one should have been able to survive.


End file.
